Is this the real reality? What do you believe or think?

RDKirk · Friday at 4:32 PM

dlamberth said:
In the world I'm familiar with which is geology, science has been able to explain quite a bit. The thing is, what the Earth itself is showing us paints a very different picture than what Genesis show.

I think not.

As I said in an earlier post, I think God followed His usual method of showing a Bronze Age man a vision of the creation of the Universe (necessarily compressing billions of years into a few nights of dreams) without narration, and that Bronze Age man described that vision in Bronze Age terms.

sjastro · Friday at 4:55 PM

How many holes does a drinking straw have?
It depends on whether you are a layperson or mathematician.

The layperson will usually answer two, the mathematician using algebraic topology will state the straw can be formed by stretching a torus parallel to the central axis of hole, in which case it only has one hole.

If algebraic topology is a discovery instead of a human invention, mathematical reality is just as valid as physical reality so which is the correct answer?

It highlights the difficulties in assigning absolutes to our sense of reality.

RDKirk · Friday at 5:18 PM

sjastro said:
The layperson will usually answer two, the mathematician using algebraic topology will state the straw can be formed by stretching a torus parallel to the central axis of hole, in which case it only has one hole.

One hole is the clear answer to me. Who would say a straw has two holes any more than a donut or a bunt cake?

timewerx · Friday at 5:20 PM

Hans Blaster said:
I've read Genesis. There is no astrophysics in it, nor anything even remotely resembling astrophysics.

"If God..." Yes, no astrophysics.

The first writers of Genesis many centuries ago would not have understood it anyway.

johansen · Friday at 5:29 PM

timewerx said:
The first writers of Genesis many centuries ago would not have understood it anyway.

i'm not sure about that.

its easy enough to explain to a child enough nuclear physics where if they wrote the information down, a few thousand years later we would understand it today and recognize that someone knew it, or was shown it.

The chapter in Enoch that explains the water cycle is beautiful to me, its a great example of someone who had a spiritual experience showing them that the water changes forms, mist, ice, liquid, rain, hail, according to rigid rules governed by angels.

Today not many will even read the whole chapter, but its correct that the water cycle operates by rigid rules that God created: its called physics. the whole point of that chapter (or spiritual experience someone had at least 2200 years ago).. is that God is in control of nature and it does not operate on its own authority aka lawlessness.

So when it comes to nuclear decay rates that control how hot the sun is.. no, they don't change. thus the earth really is "ancient" as one of the biblical prophets called it.

If it had just been created 3000 years before him, he would not have called it ancient, as allegedly they believed that adam and others lived almost 1000 years. (if you believe the torah even existed as it does today, in the days of Isaiah)

sjastro · Friday at 5:32 PM

RDKirk said:
One hole is the clear answer to me. Who would say a straw has two holes any more than a donut or a bunt cake?

So how many holes does a t-shirt have?

RDKirk · Friday at 5:50 PM

sjastro said:
So how many holes does a t-shirt have?

Wait, the issue I raised was to your assertion that a layman would say a straw has two holes. I argue that a layman would say a straw has one hole.

And a layman would say a t-shirt has four holes.

That doesn't mean the layman's understanding of topology is consistent between the two. That's why he's a "layman."

timewerx · Friday at 5:54 PM

Mark Quayle said:
I wouldn't separate the two so simply. 'Science' is ignorant, so far. It doesn't explain anything. It just helps us think about things. Genesis does fit all facts, no matter how far 'science' goes. God being God, he 'invented' the whole business.

Science at one point disproved geocentrism.

Genesis did not describe the process that created the Universe. It only said God created it. But how? I think science is closer to the answer.

Hans Blaster · Friday at 6:11 PM

sjastro said:
So how many holes does a t-shirt have?

Most of mine have at least 5.

timewerx · Friday at 6:13 PM

johansen said:
The chapter in Enoch that explains the water cycle is beautiful to me, its a great example of someone who had a spiritual experience showing them that the water changes forms, mist, ice, liquid, rain, hail, according to rigid rules governed by angels.

I read the book of Enoch and the writer of that book certainly received far more detailed vision and the workings of the Universe than the writer of Genesis as well as aligning with morality of Jesus.

IMO, the Book of Enoch is a better book than Genesis.

sjastro · Friday at 6:30 PM

RDKirk said:
Wait, the issue I raised was to your assertion that a layman would say a straw has two holes. I argue that a layman would say a straw has one hole.

And a layman would say a t-shirt has four holes.

That doesn't mean the layman's understanding of topology is consistent between the two. That's why he's a "layman."

I stated a layperson will usually answer two.
The t-shirt example is far more definitive, like the drinking straw laypeople will think of objects like these as being 3D objects.
To a pure mathematician or topologist, drinking straws and t-shirts are 2D objects embedded in 3D space and can be transformed without tearing or punching holes in the surfaces.
A t-shirt is topologically equivalent to a drinking straw or donut and therefore only has one hole.
I doubt a layperson will state a drinking straw has only one hole, using the same reasons given by a mathematician.

The point of this is that such ideas which started off as purely intellectual or mind dependent exercises have found their way into the physical sciences, blurring the boundary as to as to what reality actually is.

sjastro · Friday at 6:35 PM

Hans Blaster said:
Most of mine have at least 5.

Moths do not understand how algebraic topology works.

Hans Blaster · Friday at 6:45 PM

sjastro said:
Moths do not understand how algebraic topology works.

Never seen a cloth-eating moth. I did have one with acid holes, though.

sjastro · Friday at 8:48 PM

Hans Blaster said:
Never seen a cloth-eating moth. I did have one with acid holes, though.

Do you still use naphthalene moth balls in wardrobes in your country?
They seem to be less common here due to health and safety concerns, I recall choking from the fumes.

Hans Blaster · Friday at 9:37 PM

sjastro said:
Do you still use naphthalene moth balls in wardrobes in your country?

War-drobes?

sjastro said:
They seem to be less common here due to health and safety concerns, I recall choking from the fumes.

I haven't even heard a reference to the chemical kind (as opposed to the deep storage of equipment kind) in decades. I think they might have been that odd smell in the closets in the storage room at my grandma's house.

Mark Quayle · Saturday at 11:56 AM

dlamberth said:
In the world I'm familiar with which is geology, science has been able to explain quite a bit. The thing is, what the Earth itself is showing us paints a very different picture than what Genesis show.

Well, no. It doesn't. Genesis doesn't show much about geology. It just doesn't fit your head. Geology helps you think about the elements, time, forces and the earth, etc. It fits your head to the facts.

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Is this the real reality? What do you believe or think?

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